A Cheesy Soup Trick

This soup takes inspiration from an Italian minestrone soup, with a tomato-based stock and a wedge of a hard cheese rind.
A Cheesy Soup Trick
All together, this soup provides a healthy and comforting respite on a winter day. Lynda Balslev for Tastefood
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Try this soup for a nourishing weeknight meal. It takes inspiration from an Italian minestrone soup, with a tomato-based stock and a wedge of a hard cheese rind.

Yes, that’s right: A chunk of a hard Italian cheese rind is a great trick to boost flavor and depth in your soup stock. It’s also an efficient no-waste use for any dwindling pieces of Parmigiano-Reggiano and pecorino Romano cheese stashed in your fridge. These pieces are flavor bombs, imparting salty, piquant, umami goodness into your soup. When a hunk is added to the stock, the rind softens and begins to break down, infusing its essence into the broth, deepening its flavor, and slightly thickening the soup while it simmers.

Lynda Balslev
Lynda Balslev
Author
Lynda Balslev is a cookbook author, food and travel writer, and recipe developer based in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she lives with her Danish husband, two children, a cat, and a dog. Balslev studied cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris and worked as a personal chef, culinary instructor, and food writer in Switzerland and Denmark. Copyright 2025 Lynda Balslev. Distributed by Andrews McMeel Syndication.
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